


TH3 L4WS H4V3 CH4NG3D

by cosmogyral



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Horrorterrors - Freeform, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/pseuds/cosmogyral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We agreed that you would try to use paralegals for citations to the Proph3c13s," Rose says, shepherding Karkat gently out of his seat and taking it for her own. "That's what they're for."</p>
            </blockquote>





	TH3 L4WS H4V3 CH4NG3D

**Author's Note:**

> HSO BR1 (Genre Mashup) fic, for shinigamishi's prompt [Rose<>Terezi, Legal Drama, occult.](http://hs-olympics.dreamwidth.org/13513.html?thread=1931721#cmt1931721)
> 
> This is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written, and I wrote it in the same round as an AU where Dave and John are catapulted into little-studied periods of medieval European history as an excuse to make up names for them. I'm just warning you.
> 
> Also this fic contains nonconsensual horrorterror madness played for laffs.

The lobby's dark when the doors slide open, but there are still scattered pockets of light from the computer stations where desperate or toadying paralegals are finishing up, God willing, the last of their allotted tasks for the day. They look up in covert curiosity to see her. It doesn't matter how long one cohabitates with one's moirail, or how often one visits her at work; one is still a terrifying alien from an unknown world. Also, one might potentially be bringing fresh coffee.

Terezi's office is behind the sludge dispensary, and a faint muttering comes from it, one Rose knows all too well. She pauses in the door and watches Karkat mumble to himself in the chair in front of the desk. "Darling, you've driven Karkat insane again."

"Objection!" Terezi says, without lifting her head. "Driving implies a lack of consent or direction which can only be applied to the delivery of a person or subject to a place not within their property. The defendant's lease in the location in question is long-standingly known to the bench--" She tilts her head up at this, presumably to deliver a flourish, and focuses on Karkat properly, now moving on to the third Revelations of Nrub'yiglith and steaming a little. "Oh," she says. "I guess I did."

"We agreed that you would try to use paralegals for citations to the Proph3c13s," Rose says, shepherding Karkat gently out of his seat and taking it for her own. "That's what they're for."

"Your ignorance of the Alternian legal system is as charming as your hair smells nice today. That is what legal _assistants_ are for," Terezi says. Usually this is where she laughs, and gets up to go, but she only puts down her highlighter. There's something about the spread of her hand that spurs Rose to lift it, with care, and examine the title on the folder underneath it.

"Oh," Rose says. "Helmhead."

"Helmhead," Terezi says. She rubs her hand across her eyes. "Who is not breaking a single law."

"Hence why you could afford to ferry your informant to the edge of madness," Rose guesses, and Terezi nods, flipping open the folder. She hands Rose the photo, Helmhead at the prow of his ship flanked by the drones, beaming with the proud and fatuous smile of the troll appointed to direct their course. Helmhead wears his blue sigil with the kind of tacky flair Rose expects from remnants of the world before the Game.

"We thought we could swing it as an equal protection charge," Terezi says. "We would say he's violating his duty as a member of one of the custodian classes. But! Here is the thing. His obligation as a member of the custodian classes _explicitly_ extends _only_ to those members currently alive. He can't commit negligence to slurry he hasn't even collected. And he says he is not malicious! He says he simply _forgets_ that the warmer colors breed on a different time scale. It is coincidence every single time. His Honorable Benevolence is not very persuaded by coincidence."

Rose watches Terezi drum her fingers against the desk, the claws leaving little divots in the sheaf of paper. "And when the next generation of grubs hardly has any red or yellow at all, that will be simple coincidence as well, I assume."

"Of the most convincing kind," Terezi agrees. "Karkat, stop your chattering and get me coffee."

"Fhruck yllu," Karkat says, almost intelligibly, and Rose takes his wrist to draw the dark fingers of the gods away from the fragile lattice of his mind. They loosen their grip, one by one, to wrap around her instead.

"When I was young. Before Certain Events Occured," Terezi says. "Before Alternia _changed._ I learned precisely how to climb into a self-satisfied official's respiteblock, when his ship came into dock. And how to drop a noose from the the top rung of his bunk's ladder." She sighs. She sounds almost dreamy. "It's too short a distance to break his neck, unless you shove down hard, and suffocation takes forever. You make them beg for it."

It's startlingly easy to picture. Rose takes some time with it. "Personally, I'd get a confession out of him."

"Ugh, maybe if I were eight again," Terezi says, flicking her hand. "What's the point? A confession just makes the next one better at hiding it. I need a conviction."

Rose puts Karkat down, earning a coherent "pustulating corpses," and comes around Terezi's desk to rifle through the files herself. She taps them neatly against the table, slips them back into their file, and binds it back up. "Not," she says, "yours."

Terezi sniffs, and for one pale minute Rose thinks she's going to knock the books off her shelves, push Rose down into them, talk about the loss of the bad old world like they did before they put aside childish things, and then Karkat says, "Let me guess. _Some_ asshole thinks a friendship is for mindfucking, not just for Twelfth Perigee." He coughs. "Did you seriously ask me to get you coffee? When someone less forbearing and generally amazing than me kills you, I am going to leave your body somewhere where it'll decay slowly. As a warning to every other idiot who's ever confused-- Wow, get a fucking pile."

The tension runs out of Terezi's shoulders with a sigh, and she grins at him. "You can stop whining. You are perfectly fine."

"Except I'm in danger of vomiting on _you_ two," Karkat grumbles, and gets up. "I'm giving you one minute to sap at each other and then I'm pissing in the sludge dispenser."

"You are the most dramatic human I've ever met," Terezi says, to Rose. "Are you aware that a streak of good timing is not an adequate substitute for substance?"

"Are _you_ aware that I can use the terrible dark magyyks you've inflicted on Mr. Vantas to spoil Mr. Helmhead's whole genetic collection?" Rose asks. "As a last resort, of course."

"Miss Lalonde! That would be terrorism," Terezi says, grinning at her. "And he would have to be fired, for lack of attention to science."

"Twenty seconds!" Karkat yells. An assistant whimpers.

"Well, every single one of my genetic donors was devoted to science," Rose muses, and offers her moirail her hand. "Shall we go home?"

"Dave'll be frantic," Terezi says, fondly, and takes it. "In your professional opinion, do you think we can make it stick?"

"In my professional opinion," Rose says, "you can make a rope out of anything."


End file.
